Читать книгу HILDA LESSWAYS - Arnold Bennett - Страница 32

At the large table which was laden with prodigious, heterogeneous masses of paper and general litter, she bent over the proofs by Mr. Dayson’s side. He had one proof; she had a duplicate; the copy lay between them. It was the rough galley of a circular to the burgesses that they were correcting together. Reading and explaining aloud, he inscribed the cabalistic signs of correction in the margin of his proof, and she faithfully copied them in the margin of hers, for practice.

“l.c.,” he intoned.

“What does that mean?”

“Lower case,” he explained grandiosely, in the naïve vanity of his knowledge. “Small letter; not a capital.”

“Thank you,” she said, and, writing “l.c.,” noted in her striving brain that ‘lower case’ meant a small letter instead of a capital; but she knew not why, and she did not ask; the reason did not trouble her.

“I think we’ll put ‘enlightened’ there, before ‘public’ Ring it, will you?”

“Ring it? Oh! I see!”

“Yes, put a ring round the word in the margin. That’s to show it isn’t the intelligent compositor’s mistake, you see!”

Then there was a familiar and masterful footstep on the stairs, and the attention of both of them wavered.